Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: My Projects


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Hope & Glory: Part of the Machine

And this makes three!
As I write this, the slaves in the vaults of DriveThruRPG and Amazon are busy working to put the third Hope & Glory novelette, Part of the Machine on the virtual shelves. Here is the link to DriveThruRPG.

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I’m quite happy with the way this is turning out to be.
In the first book, Glass Houses, was set in India, and was a straightforward adventure/espionage story.
Then came Number the Brave, a war story set in the Sahara.

With Part of the Machine we move to snowbound Russia, for a noir intrigue taking place in the “zima krepost’” (Winter Fortress) of Czar Vladimir in Tsaritsin.
Young, jaded Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia is about to find more than she looked for as she moves between the apartments where the aristocracy plots and gossips, and the underground chambers where the workers toil and anarchists prepare their revolution.

As usual, the novelette comes with a full appendix detailing life in the Winter Fortress, the Russian obsession with chemicals and drugs, and more gaming resources to be used with the Savage Worlds basic handbook.

 


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Three Devils in Faustus

I just delivered a new 5000-words story to the editor of a forthcoming anthology.
It’s supposed to be sword & sorcery, and indeed it features a sword, and some sorcery.
The Devil itself plays a part in it – quite literally.
It will be first published in Italian (if, that is, it turns out to be good enough), and then hopefully also in English.

11936-004-4F8FBD3DThe story is called “Three Devils in Faustus” – and yes, this is a wink at Leiber’s masterful “Four Ghosts in Hamlet”.
I’ll never be as good as Leiber, but my story strives to be somewhat Leiberian in tone, as there is little violence, much talk, some drunkenness and a striking woman in a green dress.
But there is also some bit of Anderson’s “A Midsummer Tempest” – that is, it looks like it takes place in our world, but actually it does not.

The story did take indeed some curious work of bricolage. Continue reading →


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Books and Invincibility

With projects popping up and fizzing out almost daily (a big translation job just vanished, leaving me in the red for the winter) and stress levels rising, I decided to take a stress-free two-days, putting some order on my bookshelves.

My books have a tendency to accumulate like driftwood on a beach.
There’s the big tome on the occult I had to check for a RE:CON job, that’s now sitting on top of The Colonial Wars Sourcebook and India: A Cultural Atlas I used for some bits in Hope & Glory. That’s why all three books are bundled with the Savage World Deluxe handbook, and occupy a chair together with a stack of hardback novels, Chambers’ London Gazetteer and The Starflight Handbook.
And what of the cobweb-wrapped pile of volumes on the window-sill in the corridor upstairs, which includes a book on grave-robbing, a high-school textbook on earth sciences and The Time-traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England?
A mess.

So I sat with a carafe of cold tea, and I started separating the books into more rational stacks, and then to place them on their shelves. Continue reading →


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Ideas everywhere, and a new story

OK, new project going – because really ideas can be found everywhere.
Where will I find the time to write it, I wonder?
But anyway, good ideas should be pursued, and what I have here now is a great idea!
I am still putting together all the pieces and things, and I’m doing a nice bit of research, but I’ll work double-time to make this new thing ready for Halloween.
Because it’s horror.
Supernatural horror.
Maybe with a little touch of occult.

6fct8-two-sentence-horror-stories

As usual I’m thinking in terms of mid-length, say a novella, and possibly the first in a series. But that’s long in the coming.

It is also something really different from what I usually write, and this is the exciting bit, because it’s always good to try new concepts, styles, structures and plots.
I’m also considering the option of publishing the story in both English and Italian at the same time, which makes it even more work, but it would be nice.

I’m not giving away anything else for the time being, but I promise that, if it will eventually work out, it will be quite fun. And different.
So, wish me luck

buscafusco ghosts & shadows smallIn other news: the BUSCAFUSCO ebooks are about to be re-priced at 1.99. I know this will cut my royalties drastically (70 cents instead of two bucks), but I write to be read and to sell (not necessarily in that order) and a higher royalty on a book that does not sell is meaningless.
So, keep an eye out, in a few hours the prices will drop.


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What are you learning?

reader-512This is something I am planning for my Italian blog, but then I thought, what the heck, why not do it on Karavansara, too?
So here goes.

The basic premise:

The brain, if you don’t keep it working, it shrivels and dies

From which, the basic question:

What are you learning?

The comments are open.

And here I go first, to give the good example:

I am currently refreshing my Latin and my French, and I am learning a bit of Bayesian logic. I am also about to start reading a book called The Singing Neanderthals, about the origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body.

And you, out there?
Are you learning something new or refreshing some old knowledge?

Also, what are you using as a learning tool?

I am currently using old-fashioned books and ebooks, with a side serving of Youtube videos.


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Buscafusco: Ghosts & Shadows

Winter in the wine hills of Monferrato is as beautiful as it is cold.

In the early days of the year, Buscafusco is making end meets by shoveling snow out of other people’s driveways.
But on New Year’s Eve, a boy vanished on his way to the new year party.
And old ghosts are stirring in the old, dark, cursed Villa Brichetto.
Who you gonna call?

BUSCAFUSCO: Ghosts & Shadows is out now, on Amazon.


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Travels of the mind (and one day, maybe, the body)

It all started with an impromptu sort of thing.
Meeting a friend after a long time.  It’s been quite a while since we spent some time together, we have a lot of catching up to do.
So we decided to meet in the next few days, in Turin, and spend a whole day rambling around the Egyptian Museum. We both love Egyptian antiquities, and the old museum was one of our favorite haunts..
And there’s climate control in the museum – so we could stroll among the mummies and talk, in the cool air. Then maybe a bite somewhere reasonably cheap but quality.
So, why not?

Well, let me tell you why not.
A quick check with the Egyptian Museum website tells me the ugly truth. Continue reading →